Overview
The environmental, societal, and economic drivers of an efficient urban transport system are acknowledged and reflected in the local transport plans of major urban areas. This project contributes towards these drivers by increasing the efficiency of tramway and urban rail operations.
A key challenge to meet the projected growth in demand of urban transport by tram is to maximise the availability of the track at the required integrity for the running of passenger vehicles/rolling stock. PM ‘n’ IDEA has been designed to contribute towards the achievement of this goal by addressing the two factors that can have an adverse effect on track availability.
- Unplanned renewal and maintenance enforced by unpredictable breakdowns
- Intrusive inspection to ensure integrity of the system.
The ultimate aim is to make tramway operations more reliable and cost effective and thereby reduce traffic congestion and impact on the environment. The project is driven by commercial principles to lower the risk of development and reduce the period to implementation of the solutions developed.
The PM ‘n’ IDEA project focuses on the development of novel inspection and sensor technologies for rail/tram track infrastructure. In particular, it:
- Contributes to the realisation of a 24/7 railway by minimising the disruption caused by activities such as inspection, remedial and reactive maintenance, and track renewal;
- Introduces novel sensor and inspection technologies which focus more on the monitoring of degradation through the measurement of deviation from identified benchmark data known as a “signature tune”.
The project activities are directed towards increasing the effective availability of the track infrastructure, increasing the life of new or renovated asset, reducing the cost of maintenance by timely intervention based on objective measurement of degradation, and thereby providing a high quality reliable service to the end user. This will enable a move from the “find and fix” approach towards preventative maintenance with visibility of residual life and future investment requirements.
The project addresses the key requirement of minimising manual inspection (“track walking”) for urban transport systems, although the technologies developed are also likely to be applicable to main line railways.
The project focuses on the degradation of key components of the track system such as insulated block joints and stretcher bars whose integrity is fundamental to meet the objective of a 24/7 railway and the associated increase in duty conditions. It will also bridge the current gap in standards for the definition and assessment of the structural integrity of grooved rail.
The project will deliver new component designs and maintenance processes that are aimed at improving the integrity of urban rail transport networks through the deployment of intelligent design and sensor technologies into cost-effective products and targeted non-intrusive monitoring processes. In particular, the monitoring systems will combine objective automatic visual inspection with examination of internal integrity and the assessment of system and component degradation from a defined datum.
The project addresses the need for both new and renovated tracks by developing self-monitoring track components that will provide a step-change reduction in maintenance and inspection costs, increased energy and resource consumption efficiency, and longer asset lives.
Some of the key requirements addressed within the scope of
The technical structure of the project includes the following work-packages:
WP1. Objective assessment of visual integrity - focusing on the use a range of enabling technologies to monitor the degradation of the track infrastructure. Image acquisition is undertaken on a normal service vehicle so that track availability is not consumed for inspection. A second approach is the use of an innovative acquisition and processing technology based on laser sensor dimensional measuring system with on-board diagnostic data interpretation for early warning of critical failures.
WP2. Objective assessment of internal integrity – this selects, develops and validates a suitable inspection method for the assessment of the structural internal integrity of embedded rails. An inventory of inspection methods and techniques (existing and innovative solutions) is made and based on the results obtained, a suitable technique is selected and developed into a system. For detecting non visual rail defects an inspection technique based upon high frequency vibration analysis is selected.
A prototype inspection system is made within this task, including excitation system and data acquisition and processing, for installing on a trolley or vehicle. This system is then validated in the network run by STIB (urban transport operator in Brussels) by analysing track sections with new rail and old sections with known rail defects and unknown rail defects. Rail sections where rail structural integrity defects are identified will be examined in detail (rail will be removed) for closer examination and validation of the assessment technique.
WP3. Objective assessment of track quality – this involves the implementation of a system for the measurement of track quality developing condition monitoring techniques and instrumentation. Assessments are made as to the suitability of the measurement techniques, the type of instrumentation that can be applied and how the associated measurement can be interpreted and compared to idealised models to identify degradation in track quality.
WP4. Structural integrity of flat bottomed and grooved rail – this will determine safe wear limits for grooved rail. Simulations of the loading conditions of grooved rail in track will be carried outs using the results from WP3 as input parameters. Extrapolation of results for different levels of wear, rail grade and profile will be performed. The other important parameters to be investigated are t
Funding
Results
The project has delivered six Key Innovations that are aimed at improving the integrity of urban rail transport networks through the deployment of intelligent design and sensor technologies into cost effective products and targeted non-intrusive monitoring processes.
The six Key Innovations are:
1. Intelligent image acquisition & analysis techniques for undertaking objective track inspection
A cost effective image acquisition system capable of very high image quality and resolution has been developed, which can easily be mounted on the bogie of a tramway, metro, or a mainline service or maintenance vehicle. The system comprises of a pair of high speed linescan cameras and a novel bank of high power very high intensity LED illumination system to ensure consistently sharp images of each rail and the surrounding track infrastructure. The acquired images are stored on an onboard computer. The true novelty of the developed system lies in the software developed for the automated analysis for the detection of identified defect types or features. The system can be operated at vehicle speeds of 90 mph with an image resolution of 0.1 mm/pixel.
The project has also developed a library of object recognition algorithms and analysis techniques for the identification of track components such Pandrol fastening clips, fish plates, and the interface between the road and polymer. The computer vision algorithms classify the severity of a range of defects by examining features such as size and location on the rail.
2. Laser sensors dimensional measuring system with onboard diagnostics
The project developed an laser-sensor dimensional measuring system. This is an evolutionary technique used to reconstruct the three-dimensional shape from linear measurements. This technology gives an additional dimension beyond the conventional 2D flat image used to inspect infrastructure components. The local structural information, particularly depth profile (Z level), can be measured and identified on an image. The depth information is superimposed by colour on to a 2D image where conventional image processing algorithms applying pattern matching detection can be used. Moreover, access to depth information is an alternative approach to the problem of low level of contrast in conventional images. The system resolution and accuracy of the system varies according to the speed of the vehicle.
The system can be installed on a bogie or on the vehicle body, the nearer to the
Innovation aspects
The software developed for the automated analysis for detection of identified defect types or features.
Strategy targets
Innovating for the future (technology and behaviour): integrated urban mobility